


even fairy tales have aftermaths

by ExhaustedCommonSense



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Bandom Bingo 2017, Little Red Riding Hood - Freeform, Teen wolf Style, Werewolves, fairy tale prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-03
Updated: 2017-03-03
Packaged: 2018-09-27 23:48:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10057409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ExhaustedCommonSense/pseuds/ExhaustedCommonSense
Summary: Let’s stop and wonder what would have happened if Little Red never made it to granny’s.





	

Once upon a time Little Red Riding went into the forest and met a wolf. She was young and naïve and she told the wolf things that she shouldn’t have. Little Red nearly got herself and her grandma killed and was only saved by the luck of being overheard by a hunter. The moral of the story was to not talk to strangers and to stay on the path.

Let’s replace Little Red with a boy named Gerard Way. A boy who was willing to risk the forest for his grandmother. A boy who knows better than to wander off the path and get lost. A boy who has a little brother waiting for him back home. A boy who didn’t stop to talk to the wolf. But a boy who wasn’t given a chance to stray. A boy who was taken before he’d even opened his mouth.

Let’s stop and wonder what would have happened if Little Red never made it to granny’s.

Once upon a time a boy in a red cloak walked into the forest and met a wolf. He wasn’t naïve and he refused to speak to the wolf but the wolf wasn’t interested in words. The wolf felt a different sort of hunger when he looked at the boy and decided to keep him. The boy was never heard from again and there was no moral because life is not a fairy tale.

However, we can’t end the story there.

 

* * *

 

 

“It’s been a year,” Mikey stated, a stubborn set to his jaw and the start of a glare in his eyes. “I’m going.”

“It’s dangerous,” his father reminded him. His mother stood watching with sad eyes, she knew she’d lost this argument. It had been a long time coming.

“I haven’t seen her in a year,” Mikey repeated, his words becoming sharper. “I refuse to lose my grandma and my brother.”

The slam of the door as he left didn’t quite mask his mothers’ sob. She watched him walk away until she couldn’t see him anymore and prayed that the forest wouldn’t take another one of her sons.

 

The forest had a strange aura around it. There was a feeling of being watched and an instinct that told Mikey that he wasn’t welcome amongst the trees. His hand tightened on the basket that he was carrying. Hidden underneath the cover to keep the food clean, Mikey had placed a sharp knife he’d found in his fathers’ work room.

_Let whatever took my brother try to take me_ , he dared silently, _I’m ready_.

There was no answer to his voiceless summon; the forest remained silent, quieter than should have been natural, but the feeling of danger didn’t get any stronger – nor weaker.

He was on edge the whole way to his grandmother’s house; a small cottage situated in the middle of the forest, in a small clearing that was somehow void of the oppressive feeling of the trees surrounding it.

It was half a day’s walk to get to the isolated cottage; many people had asked his grandmother, Elena, why she would want to live so far away from the safety of the village. In reply, she always told them that she felt perfectly safe in the forest. Privately, Mikey had always got a sense of power and magic from his grandmother and suspected that if she’d been with Gerard that day than he’d have come back home.

The front door of the cottage opened as he’d expected it to: he couldn’t remember a time when the door was ever locked. Letting himself in, Mikey could hear a faint snoring sound coming from the direction of the bedroom. The basket was dumped onto the table as he made his way further into the house.

Mikey had known his grandma his whole life and he’d never heard her snore before, so he took the knife and followed the sound. As suspected, he found the source of the snoring coming from the only bedroom in the cottage.

Laying in his grandma’s bed and dressed in her clothes was a guy that looked to be around Mikey’s age. Mikey watched him for a few seconds, feeling a bit perplexed, before putting the knife down on the chest of drawers and loudly clearing his throat. The guy woke up quickly, sitting upright and looking around the room for any sign of danger, freezing when he saw Mikey.

“You’re definitely not my grandma,” Mikey raised an eyebrow at him. “And this isn’t the sort of roleplay I’m interested in.”

The guy blinked at him before he got up, painstakingly remaking the bed. “Should I take that as a compliment or insult?”

“Well, you’re too short to be my grandma,” Mikey smirked, swallowing a laugh at the scowl and swearing that earned him.

Shamelessly, the guy stripped out of his borrowed clothes and got dressed into a pair of ripped trousers and a top that seemed to be in the same condition.

“I’m Frank,” the guy introduced himself once he was dressed. “Elena said I could stay here while she went to go get someone she says can help me.”

“Help you with what?” Mikey questioned, relaxing a little when the guy didn’t make any threatening moves towards him.

“I’ve got a small problem with a hunter,” Frank replied easily, but Mikey could see how tired and drained he looked. “He’s got a bit of an issue with wolves and has been hunting me for a while now.”

“Wolves,” Mikey stared at him, thinking of legends and stories that Elena had always told them carried a thread of truth. “Like werewolves?”

“Exactly like werewolves,” Frank’s eyes changed into a bright golden colour that caused a thousand questions to land on his tongue, but they were interrupted before Mikey could ask any of them.

“Get away from him,” a voice growled from behind them.

Frank let out a small squeaking noise that he would deny to his dying day and flinched away from Mikey, scrambling backwards until his back hit the bedroom wall. Mikey didn’t notice this though, he was too busy staring at the ghost standing at the door.

It looked like his brother, but this Gerard had bright red eyes and teeth as sharp as any wolf. However, his expression when he met Mikey’s eyes belonged to his brother, and so Mikey didn’t hesitate to stride forward and pull him into a hug.

Mikey missed the aborted movement Frank made to pull him back, but Gerard didn’t and it made him begin to like him already. Anyone who was willing to try protect Mikey was a good guy in Gerard’s book.

“Gerard,” Mikey breathed, pulling away from the hug and stepping back a bit to see him better, watching as his eyes changed back to the colour he remembered and his teeth shrunk in his mouth. “What happened?”

_Why didn’t you come back? Why did you let me think you were dead? Why did you leave me_? The unspoken questions echoed in the air between them.

“I got captured by the big bad wolf,” Gerard shrugged, leaning casually against the doorframe. Mikey noticed that where before he had been all awkward motions and flailing limbs, now his movements were graceful and predatory.

“You don’t look captured,” Mikey countered, raising his eyebrows in a silent challenge. He may have changed, but they were still brothers and they had always told each other everything.

“I…took care…of the wolf that took me,” Gerard smirked, letting his eyes flash red briefly. “And gained a pretty new eye colour in the process.”

“But you didn’t come back,” Mikey stated. He was confused and angry about being abandoned, but watching this version of his brother who had left him behind, he mostly felt sad.

Gerard had always known how he was feeling, and he softened at the emotions no one else could see on Mikey’s face. “I couldn’t Mikes,” he explained gently, straightening up and stepping towards him. “I can’t leave the forest. No one with more wolf than man in their blood can leave. It’s meant to be a safe guard to protect the town,” Gerard snorted. “It was definitely a good idea when Bert was alpha. Bit of a nuisance now though.”

“You can’t leave the forest,” Mikey repeated, a wave of relief flowing through him: he hadn’t been forgotten, he’d just been out of reach.

“I kept waiting for you to come into the forest,” Gerard told him earnestly, looking more like the big brother Mikey remembered with every passing moment. “But you didn’t even come to visit grandma.”

Mikey jolted, in the shock of seeing his brother, he’d forgotten about where they were. Standing in the hallway behind Gerard, Elena stood watching them. She smiled at him when she saw him looking in her direction, giving off the same aura of magic and secrets she’d always carried.

“She came to get me to tell me about Frank,” Gerard turned slightly to smile at her before looking towards where Frank still stood with his back to the wall. “If you want to come with me, there’s a place for you in my pack.”

Frank nodded and shuffled forward with a hesitant smile. He wanted to know why he was being accepted so quickly, but he wasn’t about to question his good luck. Instead, he grinned at Elena in thanks and hoped he could live up to whatever story she’d told her grandson that made him take Frank into his pack.

“I’m going with you,” Mikey stated, eyes hard and daring Gerard to say otherwise.

Gerard looked at him. Everything in him wanted to shout that of course he was coming with him; he had missed him too much the past year to let him go now. The wolf in him demanded that he take Mikey and make him pack, regardless of what he wanted, but Gerard had always been a big brother before he was anything else and while he wouldn’t – couldn’t – tell him no, he would make sure he understood.

“You won’t ever be able to go back,” he said quietly. It went unsaid that Mikey would have to be a wolf to leave with them. There were no secrets between them and Mikey knew exactly what he meant.

“There’s nothing to go back for,” Mikey told him honestly. Gerard wasn’t the only one who wasn’t willing to be separated again.

Gerard nodded and led the two of them outside where could say goodbye to Elena. While Mikey hugged his grandma farewell for the time being, Gerard smiled, thinking of how happy Ray and Dewees were going to be when they met the brother he hadn’t stopped talking about. He even thought they would like Frank; he personally thought that they’d both fit into the pack perfectly.

“What if the hunter realizes I’ve been here?” Frank asked fretfully, worried about this wonderful old woman who’d helped him to find a pack.

“Don’t worry about that,” Elena soothed, eyes sparkling. “I’m perfectly safe in the forest.”

 

When the hunter finally tracked her down, he found Elena in the middle of the forest. She was smiling more confidently than any old woman should be when faced with a dangerous and armed man. Behind her, four pairs of golden eyes shone in the darkness, but Elena was smiling at something just behind him, at a pair of glowing red eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> Cut scene for Donna Way:
> 
> Their mother was sad but unsurprised when Mikey didn’t return, but she had something like magic in her veins, so she knew he was with his brother. She knew wherever they were that they’d look after each other. 
> 
>  
> 
> In case anyone is interested, I'm picturing Bob as the hunter.


End file.
